Audubon Zoo's 'Swamp Fest' celebrates 25 years

Thirty years ago, the conventional knowledge about zoos was that they were for exotic animals displayed in as natural a setting as possible. New Orleans' own Audubon Zoo was one of the first in the country to shift that paradigm with the 1984 opening of its swamp exhibit, which focused instead on species native to south Louisiana.

The exhibit was an immediate hit, has remained one of the zoo's most well-known highlights and spawned the creation of the Louisiana Swamp Festival, better known as Swamp Fest, which celebrates its 25th anniversary with a weekend showcase of Cajun and Creole music, food and ecology.

"We were the first among the United States zoos to do a cultural, native exhibit," said Rick Atkinson, curator of the swamp exhibit and an Audubon zookeeper since the 1970s. "In this country, we were pioneers. Now, there are very few museums in the United States that don't have that regional habitat exhibit."

The idea for the exhibit started with a federal study conducted with the assistance of the Audubon Institute and local ecologists, zoologists and planners. At the time, Atkinson said, most zoos across the country were working to meet heightened federal standards for humane animal treatment. In addition to making a plan to meet those standards, Audubon officials wanted to create a more innovative zoo, Atkinson said.

"The first mention of a Louisiana exhibit was in that federal study," which was released in the early 1970s, he said.

The suggestion came as no surprise to Atkinson, who had regularly conducted popular presentations of local reptiles, amphibians and birds for years.

"What I discovered over there was that people would actually pay admission to see local animals," he said. "People just kept coming. Even though they'd seen it before, they wanted to show their grandkids, share stories. They'd say, 'I caught one bigger than that.'"

The swamp exhibit eventually became part of the zoo's master plan, but Atkinson wasn't satisfied with simply re-creating the natural environment of Cajun country. He thought it would only make sense to include elements of the region's built environment elements that often seem part of the natural landscape, such as houseboats, pirogues and fishing docks.

"At the time, everyone in the zoo business wanted everything to be primordial no man-made interference," Atkinson said. "But here, there's a mutual coexistence of man and swamp. The architecture (in the swamp exhibit) is supposed to replicate the architecture one would find down on the bayou."

The five-acre exhibit is at the farthest point of the zoo, close to the Mississippi River levee and seemingly a world away from the tigers and lions in the Asian exhibit. Alligators live in one of the lagoons. The other holds birds and turtles. An indoor exhibit houses Gulf fish and tableaus of local life, such as a Garden District porch stoop with a mailbox where the rat snakes like to hang out. The zoo's 1999 renovation gave the swamp exhibit two white alligators, a Cajun dance hall and a gift shop.

The exhibit is so true-to-life, it regularly hosts visiting wildlife, such as the heron, egrets and ducks who migrate through Louisiana. Wild raccoons and a pair of hawks are welcome guests, Atkinson said.

"We have a group of barred owls that have been here almost since the beginning of the exhibit," he said. "These are animals we never planned on, but we certainly don't discourage it."

In addition to enjoying Cajun delicacies, handicrafts and music, zoo officials are hoping visitors to Swamp Fest will rediscover the exhibit that first set Audubon Zoo apart on a national stage.

"For a while, we pitched (the exhibit) as the 'other swamp tour,'" Atkinson continued. "People know New Orleans and Bourbon Street, but this is the whole other story of south Louisiana."